Thinkpad E595: Fn + Volume/Brightness keys not working

juergend · 2019-10-05 18:55:23

On my Thinkpad E595 + Arch Linux + Openbox, the Fn-Volume and Brightness-Keys are not working.
To me it seems, that this is somehow a standard issue, but all the posts I was reading didn't really help.
Maybe someone of you has an idea.

What does work

The keys are recognised by the X-Server.
Output of xev when pressing Fn+F-Keys:

KeyPress event, serial 53, synthetic NO, window 0x2600001,
    root 0x3fc, subw 0x0, time 1156424, (1917,-17), root:(1919,0),
    state 0x0, keycode 233 (keysym 0x1008ff02, XF86MonBrightnessUp), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes: 
    XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes: 
    XFilterEvent returns: False

KeyRelease event, serial 50, synthetic NO, window 0x2600001,
    root 0x3fc, subw 0x0, time 1154552, (1917,-17), root:(1919,0),
    state 0x0, keycode 232 (keysym 0x1008ff03, XF86MonBrightnessDown), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes: 
    XFilterEvent returns: False

KeyRelease event, serial 48, synthetic NO, window 0x2600001,
    root 0x3fc, subw 0x0, time 1147995, (1917,-17), root:(1919,0),
    state 0x0, keycode 123 (keysym 0x1008ff13, XF86AudioRaiseVolume), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes: 
    XFilterEvent returns: False

The binding of the Fn-Key which disabled WLAN (XF86WLAN). It (soft) blocks my wifi (checked via rfkill)

reducing the the brightness via

echo 5 > /sys/class/backlight/amdgpu_b10/brigthness

Boot and ACPI-Settings:

I set the ACPI-backlight boot parameter

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="loglevel=3 quiet acpi_backlight=vendor"

The thinkpad-acpi kernel module is loaded:

[***@***]$ dmesg | grep thinkpad
[    3.412333] thinkpad_acpi: ThinkPad ACPI Extras v0.26
[    3.412334] thinkpad_acpi: http://ibm-acpi.sf.net/
[    3.412335] thinkpad_acpi: ThinkPad BIOS R11ET28W (1.08 ), EC R11HT28W
[    3.412342] thinkpad_acpi: Lenovo ThinkPad E595, model 20NFCTO1WW
[    3.412938] thinkpad_acpi: radio switch found; radios are enabled
[    3.448468] thinkpad_acpi: Standard ACPI backlight interface not available, thinkpad_acpi native brightness control enabled
[    3.653108] thinkpad_acpi: battery 1 registered (start 95, stop 100)
[    3.653187] input: ThinkPad Extra Buttons as /devices/platform/thinkpad_acpi/input/input8

Possible solution and why I want to ask you if you have alternative solutions

I could write a minimal bash script for setting the brightness/volume manually and bind it via the openbox keys to my Fn-Hotkeys. This would resolve the issues. But what I don't like about is, that I think via some configuration I miss, it should work out of the box, because the WLAN-hotkey is working! Maybe you have an idea what I can try out!
I tried to use "xbacklight" cause it would make it easier to set the brigthness level, but it spits me the following error out:
```
No outputs have backlight property
```
. According to many posts, it means I have to register the device manually via extending the xorg.conf with something like
```
Section "Device"
    Identifier  "Card0"
    Driver      "amdgpu"
    Option      "Backlight"  "/sys/class/backlight/amdgpu_b10/"
EndSection
```
But with those options, the xorg-server doesnt even start. Do you know what here the problem could be?

Thank you very much in advance!!

topcat01 · 2019-10-05 19:25:00

Unless your hardware supports it directly, or your desktop environment ships with pre-configured bindings (such as KDE/GNOME), the multimedia keys won't work. However, if xev is recognising them then everything is functional

On my system running fvwm I use xbindkeys to make it independent of the window manager in use.

juergend · 2019-10-07 14:57:39

Thx for your reply!! :-)
I thought, that maybe the thinkpad_acpi or the kernel would take over the bindings of the keys to the backlight! This then means, that I make the backlight control on my own! :-)

And, about the second question I raised, about the xorg.conf to make the "xbacklight" package work:
I now read, that the "amdgpu" driver doesn't support the "Backlight" option. Therefore, this idea doesn't work.

Linux_180419 · 2020-04-18 14:31:04

Hi,

I own the same ThinkPad Model and I'm running Linux Manjaro. My Brightness keys started working from scratch. No installing was needed. Somehow they stopped working for some reason I dont know. I probably changed something to solve another problem and that effected the two keys. I probably have to clean install Manjaro again.

Last edited by Linux_180419 (2020-04-18 14:31:49)

ewaller · 2020-04-18 16:34:12

Closing this old thread. Linux_180419: You will need to take this to the Manjaro boards; we can only help with Arch Linux questions.

Arch Linux

#1 2019-10-05 18:55:23

Thinkpad E595: Fn + Volume/Brightness keys not working

#2 2019-10-05 19:25:00

Re: Thinkpad E595: Fn + Volume/Brightness keys not working

#3 2019-10-07 14:57:39

Re: Thinkpad E595: Fn + Volume/Brightness keys not working

#4 2020-04-18 14:31:04

Re: Thinkpad E595: Fn + Volume/Brightness keys not working

#5 2020-04-18 16:34:12

Re: Thinkpad E595: Fn + Volume/Brightness keys not working

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